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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Disposable Dixie-cup drinking I assassin down the avenue

I'm now right about at the point where, with Jordan, I had my meltdown and my friend Tori told me she respected my boobs.

I don't want to go on and on about the fact that things are so much better this time...but they are, they so are.

And I have this new friend who I met during the exit session at the hospital.

Sibley's exit class was over an hour long, and we were told all kinds of things like how to bathe our new progeny and how to keep track of wet and poopy diapers on our little charts and the importance of continuing to squarch our vaginas.

GW's exit class was a lot shorter, and consisted mainly of this video on how your baby might scream incessantly and you might have the urge to shake him or her but it is vitally important not to do so. Of course I'm simplifying, but that was the gist. And then the nurse told us not to eat broccoli because it could make our babies gassy.

Anyway, the important part is that I made this friend who had a baby girl the same day as India and who lives a scant four blocks away. She's extremely interesting and funny, and it feels very lucky to have a new friend who is both of those things and in the same at home and sleep-deprived state as me.

So we decided we'd meet up weekly to walk and talk, but our walking plans typically go all to hell because basically we just take turns nursing and burping our daughters. One is happy and the other is hungry, and so on and so forth.

But this week when we met up I suggested walking to Whole Foods. I needed more prenatal vitamins.

We both nursed a bit, then set off, agreeing that there were multiple spots to stop along the way if need be.

Shockingly, both were sound asleep when we arrived, and stayed asleep through the admittedly short shopping trip. At the checkout my friend suggested we push our luck and have salads at Sweetgreen.

We got our salads and set ourselves up at an inside table, and then both girls started fussing, so we moved to a marginally more private corner table, with me sitting on the short end in the window bench, and her sitting on the long side in a corner. All barricaded in by our sizable strollers.

We installed ourselves just in time for our little bundles of delight to really open their mouths wide and kick up a fuss.

Thus, without hesitation, we each whipped out a breast, stuck our respective daughters to it, and covered up with a blanket. So there we were, lunching near, if not with, each other, eating salads one-handed, me dropping quinoa on my kid, her dropping chickpeas on hers.

At some point I noted that not only did we have the same type of blanket, but hers matched her outfit, and mine matched mine.

We began to wonder if they would think we were having a nurse-in.

When both babies were happy and we'd each shoveled as much salad as possible into our faces and were organizing ourselves to go, we realized that both little buttercups of sweetness had some serious business in their little tiny diapers.

My friend suggested heading to the Breastfeeding Center to avail ourselves of their changing tables, which we did. In case you need nursing supplies or advice, I highly recommend this place. They helped me immensely with nursing Jordan.

We made it as far as the little park at Florida and Mass before India was enraged. It turned out she was just hot and crabby, but I offered her a boob in case.

There was a bus across the street, and I saw a man realize what I was up to and open his eyes wide in shock. I thought about waving but I needed both hands.

I got these great shirts from Target, which aren't officially nursing shirts but are both cuter and better than the nursing shirts I have, so you can tell that I have a kid on my boob, but you don't have a view of my business.

And then my friend, her daughter, my daughter and my business and I got up and went home.